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From Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

An economy advances because human beings, by their nature, must work to produce the goods necessary to sustain their lives. An economy therefore has a natural tendency to grow, without government “help,” as long as people are left free to produce and trade.

A government doesn’t cause economic growth. Individual initiative does. Government’s can hamper growth. But they do not cause it. And hamper growth is exactly what Obama and previous administrations have been doing. In the past 20+ years, we saw a perfect storm of government interference—regulatory, monetary, and politicians’ affordable housing crusades under Clinton and G.W. Bush—inflate the biggest housing bubble in history, bust it, and cause the worst financial crisis is history. Then we saw an avalanche of regulation and spending as Obama’s “cure’ for the resulting Great Recession—and instead of a roaring job-filled recovery like the ones following the 1920-21 depression or the 1980-82 recession, we got a mini-version of the 1930s; not as bad, but still the most anemic recovery on record which took a decade for incomes to finally catch up. Obama didn’t lift “the shadow of the great recession.” He simply smothered the recovery.

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• Iron Knee at Political Irony is a lonely voice, defending Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.
   
• Professor PZ Myers considers Northam, then digs out and goes through his own school yearbook, and thinking about how to react to youthful racism from the dim, dim past.
   
• At MadMikesAmerica, Gregory Gonzalez seems skeptical about claims that God ordained Donald Trump President.
   
• In case you missed my President’s SOTU address: Green Eagle thoughtfully provides a review, although Green Eagle did not listen to it either. Interesting how he gets it so exactly right.
   
• News Corpse watches as President Trump reacts to investigations by repeating weird conspiracy theories about Adam Schiff. Yeah, the one who chairs one of the investigating committees. Come on, people. Do we really have to resort to watching Trump sweat? Just for entertainment? This is my President for God’s sake. So … What the hell! Lets.
   
• This will be making the rounds. Frances Langum watches as Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker gets snotty with a chairman in a Congressional hearing where he is on television and under oath. This is a guy who actually sweats. A lot.
   
• Jon Perr at PERRspectives takes on the both sides do it argument as the lazy analyst’s substitute for actual journalism. Debt ceiling extortion is only a symptom of a broader one sided rot that puts the lie to political symmetry.
   
• David Pecker of National Inquirer fame goes to sleazy form and tries a bit of sextortion on Trump enemy Jeff Bezos. Bezos performs PR martial art and flips the story from the blackmail subject to the blackmail attempt itself. Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged admires, with some common euphemistic phrasing, Bexos’ anatomical virility. So to speak.
   
• Dave Dubya describes authoritarian far right conservatism as global, transcending national borders.
   
• Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit gets riled about police departments that issue tickets for the sole purpose of raising revenue. As it happens, I have felt the same way for years.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post points to the evidence and suggests that our nation has been socialist for a long, long time.
   
• Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara is less afraid of Donald Trump than of his opposition. That is because democracy is the enemy of liberty.
   
• The Journal of Improbable Research finds a study on college studies involving students. Are they pressured into participating? How do motivations skew results? Are risks unethically imposed? Part of the study involves the use of nude photos for body type comparisons, which seems the main point. Sounds improbable enough, I’d guess. Worth considering ethical implications.
   
• John Scalzi at Whatever watches twitter erupt after a noted writer urges erstwhile authors to quit day jobs and focus on making their dreams come true before it’s too late. John analyzes the logic of the argument.
   
• A sad note from Margaret and Helen. Helen delivers a short, moving tribute to Margaret’s husband Howard. Makes us wish we knew him.
   

 
From Infidel753:

Of course, people can change over decades (I certainly believed in some cringe-worthy things that far back). The question is, has Northam changed? His adult political career doesn’t suggest racism, but if his views have evolved, he needs to convincingly explain how and why, and completely repudiate the mentality shown by the 1984 photo, not try to minimize how bad it was. Otherwise he can never regain the confidence of the non-white members of his state’s population, or of whites who abhor racism. So far, he hasn’t done this. But it’s possible he may yet rise to the occasion.

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From driftglass:

The shattered remnants of the Illinois Republican Party limped into the Bank of Springfield Center last night to momentarily forget their woes by drinking themselves back to 1985 while listening to NRA president Ollie North slander Democrats. From the State Journal-Register:

North headlines Lincoln Day dinner

…

The 75-year-old North, who became president of the NRA last May, also said the “disarm America movement is the best-funded, most sophisticated assault on our American liberties in our history.”

North claimed that an unnamed “unholy troika of tyrannical billionaires” was setting the Democrats’ “far-left socialist agenda.”

“They’re using their vast fortunes to elect enough progressives to turn America into a disarmed socialist dystopia,” North said.

“The hard left in America are socialists. They’re anti-freedom candidates for office. If they succeed in what they’re doing, our lives are going to be adversely affected forever…

Yes, that happened. Probably not to thunderous applause, because the days of thunder for this collection of doddering old Republican losers is long behind them. I imagine instead something like the sound of dead branches rattling against the weather-beaten shutters of an abandoned house at the end of an abandoned road.

An imitation of life staged by and for the unquiet ghosts of a dead party. With a keynote address by the disgraced leader of a pro-gun massacre cult. At an event named after a United States president who was shot in the head and is buried a couple of mile away.

The ironies multiply like tribbles.

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From Max’s Dad:

God knows to some masochistic Democrats, there is no forgiveness for past indiscretions. Meanwhile the Republicans not only ignore racist pasts, they thrive on it. Not that Democrats should thrive on bigotry, but forgiveness is a trait they can certainly use to their advantage.

All I am Saying Is Give Fighting Back A Chance.

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From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

We know that there is a gypsy curse on whoever gives the rebuttal: we’ve endured Bobby Jindal’s Kenneth-the-Page impersonation, and of course the thirst quenching needs of Marco Rubio will be the stuff of comedy legends. Abrams’ rebuttal might become the gold standard of how to do these things well, she spoke from a room, draped in blue, with good acoustics, and had supporters standing behind her. It didn’t look or sound like a hostage tape or a demo reel from an open mic night at a coffee house.

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From Andy Borowitz:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Using some of his harshest rhetoric in recent memory, President Donald J. Trump came out strongly against intelligence on Wednesday morning.

“I’ve listened to these people with so-called intelligence go on and on, and, quite frankly, it’s a waste of time,” he said. “I know a lot more than people with intelligence do.”

Trump added that he has stopped receiving intelligence briefings at the White House, arguing, “I can do my job without any intelligence whatsoever.”

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